It's my understanding that the purpose of Stack Overflow to create a universe of questions AND ANSWERS so that a question can be asked and answered once, then searched forever. This, at least, is how I used Stack Overflow even before I joined to help with the answering and is the premise of my question.

How should I deal with following behind users who continually provide answers in the comments?

Robert Harvey's excellent answer in the linked question above is that one can copy the comment that answers the OP's question into an actual answer and mark it as community wiki. Then at least if the OP doesn't accept the answer, the community can vote it up. This is great for coming across one or two questions where the OP finds one of the comments to be sufficient to solve his problem.

However, what about users who continually answer in the comments? The common theme I've noticed is that many of the questions are usually "Why doesn't my code work?" that are answered with a simple "Because you forgot/omitted/mistyped X". I can copy comments into answers at a pretty good clip, but it gets tiring real fast, especially since copying and pasting from comments removes formatting, which I then have to reinsert.

The bottom line is that this leaves a lot of "Unanswered" questions: bad for people searching for an answer to the same question ("No answers? Guess I'll have to look somewhere else..."); bad for myself and other answerers because they must spend wasted time sifting through questions which have no answers, only to realize they have already been answered; and presumably bad for the community because they negatively impact answer statistics.

Please note, this is not a "but where are my rep points???" question. I'm just a tad peeved that one of every two unanswered questions I open turn out to be "answered" by the same two or three users in the comments and I want to know the official, most correct, best answer on how it should be addressed.

I think, based on the feedback I've gotten so far, voting to close might be the best way for me to contribute to the cleanup. Here are my thoughts (for what it's worth) on the solutions raised so far:

Downvote: This could leave new Stack Overflow users with a bad taste in their mouth and give a bad impression of Stack Overflow to the larger Internet community. It may be apparent to me that their code was incorrect in an obvious way, but most of the questions I see in this category seem to be honest mistakes.

Repost the Comment as an Answer: I don't want the reputation points, and I don't think the practice is worth encouraging.

Repost the Comment as an Answer Community Wiki: I'm sure this is a fantastic solution for archiving those long comment discussions that lead to an answer, especially when the OP or original commenter are no longer available to do so themselves. However it doesn't address those quickie one-off comment answers to questions which are simple enough to warrant them.

Vote to Close: This sounds like the best option for the majority of the questions I'm referring to, as described above. They tend to be syntactic mistakes in code, questions which can be answered "You should be using X library or function instead of Y", or "Try adding X and see if it works". This way the OP gets their answer in the comment, but the question will be cleaned up as it attains a sufficient number of votes.

One good suggestion was to allow promoting a comment to an answer. However .. sometimes "the" correct answer grows out of a 20-Questions Game in the comments.
–
JongwareApr 30 '14 at 21:58

21

Some time back on Meta I read an answer (from possibly Jeff) that said anybody is at liberty to provide an answer from the commentary. I have never done this, but I suspect it's fine.
–
Gayot FowApr 30 '14 at 21:58

3

Yeah, if there was a quick easy "turn this comment into an answer", I would probably not mind as much. But still, imagine doing this when you know in the next hour, the same commenter will "answer" 25 more questions in the comments... I haven't thrown any names out there because that's not the point, but the question is geared towards addressing the idea that somehow I should be the maid cleaning up after users who keep making what looks to me like a mess :(
–
BlackhawkApr 30 '14 at 22:01

9

As @GarryVass says, anyone can provide an answer (I remember reading this, too, and I do believe it was Jeff Atwood). So you can answer with someone else's comment. The proper etiquette is to tag the commenter to credit it was theirs, otherwise one sounds like a karma-douche.
–
rlb.usaApr 30 '14 at 22:03

2

I was wondering if they should be closed. One-line answers with unconcerned asker/answerer both is usually uninteresting. I did just click through to flag one of these, but there is no good choice for "resolved."
–
steveslivaApr 30 '14 at 22:17

6

Write a comment to the user suggesting that they leave a real answer.
–
ThisSuitIsBlackNotApr 30 '14 at 22:20

31

I do this for some subset of questions. They are all very low-quality and should be closed. Such questions (and by association, their answers) have zero intrinsic worth to any future searchers. I don't see a problem.
–
roippiApr 30 '14 at 22:46

25

"you forgot/omitted/mistyped X" such questions doesn't require an answer. If it is unlikely that it can help anybody else; it could be closed and deleted.
–
J.F. SebastianApr 30 '14 at 23:14

16

Here's an example. I wasn't sure if it would solve his problem and I wasn't sure I'd be around to read any clarification so I didn't post it as an answer. The penalty for an incorrect answer or even a typo in an answer is often an avalanche of downvotes, so when I'm not sure I stick to comments. Someone ended up posting it as an answer, so perhaps all's well that ends well?
–
Retired NinjaMay 1 '14 at 3:03

11

I'll do this sometimes when it doesn't seem like the "answer" is worthwhile enough to be An Answer. I often vote to close at the same time, but I do so miss my "minimal understanding" option (there's no good option now for "GTFW").
–
chrylisMay 1 '14 at 6:36

7

As with others I write comments when things seem trivial or base, however, sometimes I write a comment answer when I don't have time to write a real answer so I leave writing a full blown answer with workings etc to someone else
–
SammayeMay 1 '14 at 7:23

89

It's ironic that answers to this question were placed in comments.
–
CoderDennisMay 1 '14 at 13:20

19

Many questions can be answered in only one sentence and deserve no more. But when I have tried to post these as answers in the past one of two things happened: 1) the SO interface told me my answer was too short and that it should be a comment, or 2) the answer receives no upvotes nor is accepted (despite being correct, with no other answers), but frequently receives downvotes for not being expanded. No Thanks, I'll continue to answer these in the comments, and let the idle steal the answer from me when it benefits them.
–
RBarryYoungMay 1 '14 at 14:21

5

I am sometimes reluctant to post an answer that may work, and would prefer to get verification that it works before posting it as an answer. Sometimes the question isn't clear, and an answer I would like to propose may not address the issue the poster actually has.
–
RichardMay 1 '14 at 22:06

4

@Jongware: Sometimes the correct question grows out of a 20-Questions Game in the comments.
–
Mike Sherrill 'Cat Recall'May 14 '14 at 16:07

18 Answers
18

In my experience, this kind of situation is remarkably common. It usually goes
in one of two directions:

Discussion in comments, and rightly placed there, does eventually elicit the
source of the problem. The commenter who solved the problem
(or even someone else) then posts the answer as an answer.

The comments show that the problem was trivial. I usually vote to close, the
closest match reason being "it's a typo or no longer an issue".

That said, I agree that there can be a problem, namely when neither of those
things happens. The question has been solved, to the explicit satisfaction of
the OP, in comments alone; but nothing else happens. The question now becomes a
"zombie": it looks on the front page of Stack Overflow like a question that
needs an answer (since the number of answers is zero), but it isn't. That's a
waste of time and bandwidth.

It would be nice to have a way to clean up that situation. For example, why not
offer the OP (or high-rep users, or both) an "Answered in comments" link to
click? The goal here, I stress, is ultimately to have the question marked as
"answered" on the front page of Stack Overflow. This might require some tweaking
of the interface for how questions are displayed.

Here's a case in point from my own life within the past few hours: stackoverflow.com/questions/23376358/… I thought the question was trivial and that my "answer in the comment" was sufficient. The OP asked me to enter it as a real answer; I did, but reluctantly. What I really wanted to do was reply, "No, it was a dumb question and a trivial answer; you should just delete your own question." I did in fact vote to close...
–
mattApr 30 '14 at 23:03

1

I like this, but what about an option for the OP (or a mod) to promote a comment to an answer? And possibly the answerer would not get points for answering in such a case.
–
Aaron J SpetnerMay 1 '14 at 13:34

4

@AaronJSpetner Actually I think the answerer should get points in that case. When I see these situations, I sometimes add a comment, saying e.g. "Would be great if \@whoever would copy and paste that comment as an answer". And sometimes that's exactly what happens, and then I upvote it.
–
mattMay 1 '14 at 16:10

Direction number three: when I was new here, and unable to answer, there was a case where I felt obligated to counter wrong answers, and could only do it in comments.
–
WGroleauMay 1 '14 at 20:44

2

@matt While I can totally feel your pain ("No, you should just delete your stupid question") that is such a great answer. I particularly like your "historical note", haha. You deserve reversal for that.
–
Two-Bit AlchemistMay 1 '14 at 21:36

6

@WGroleau: are you sure you haven't got that the wrong way round? I'm fairly sure that you can't post comments when you're new. Everyone (except if you've been answer banned or suspended) is able to post answers, no matter their reputation.
–
Qantas 94 HeavyMay 2 '14 at 10:17

Now that I think of it, I'm only half-right. I was new at the time, but (sorry for the memory slip) it was some kind of site malfunction and not my rep that kept me from answering.
–
WGroleauMay 2 '14 at 12:18

3

I believe that if the answer can be answered in comments alone then it is probably too localized and thus should be closed.
–
Howdy_McGeeMay 2 '14 at 19:06

@WGroleau I sometimes find a question to which I do not know a correct answer but I do know that some of the proposed answers are not correct. Perhaps they contain factually incorrect statements, that could not answer any question in any universe since they are simply not true. In these cases I might downvote an answer or comment, and add a comment to make sure that those who read the thread later can see that this is not the right answer. While this is slightly off topic for this particular question, I can see that it could add to a perception of lots of comments being given without answers.
–
AdamVMay 7 '14 at 10:17

2

@matt I don't actually see why that was a bad question/answer. The programming technique (using integers by mulitplying by the LCD) is an excellent one. Certainly no reason to delete that.
–
JoeMay 7 '14 at 16:14

@Joe Maybe it's not a perfect example. I picked it because it had just happened so it was on my mind. Still, I would claim that if you can't think of this third-grade-level technique on your own, you can't program and you shouldn't be here.
–
mattMay 7 '14 at 16:32

1

@matt I disagree. Fairly obvious answers can sometimes be pretty hard to see if you're not in the right mindset. I'm a pretty good programmer, but I sometimes miss easy things because they're not techniques I've used before and are off-center enough that I didn't think in that direction.
–
JoeMay 7 '14 at 16:34

@Joe The original question has been closed and deleted so clearly the hive mind agrees with me. :)
–
mattMay 14 '14 at 21:20

I've started to answer a fair number of questions with comments recently. Why? I have several reasons.

I don't like to repwhore, at least not for egregiously bad questions. At the same time, I kind of want to pre-empt others from repwhoring themselves. By posting an answer as a comment, it generally reduces the number of people who will repost the "correct" answer as an actual answer. It also draws upvotes to the comment instead of the answers.

Yes, this is probably controversial. But these questions should not exist. In an ideal world I wouldn't answer them at all (reducing the utility of the site for help vampires). But, then someone else inevitably will, and be rewarded for it. Repwhoring on rubbish questions does nothing to help the site.

In addition to "answering" with a comment, I often VtC and downvote as appropriate.

Some questions only seem really bad. Maybe the asker actually typo'd their code. Not everyone is completely new to programming; sometimes they make errors in their questions. If the answer is mindbogglingly obvious, perhaps that's because the answer isn't what the asker was after. (Then again, sometimes it is exactly what they wanted).

If the question is less than clear, posting an "answer" as a comment can elicit the appropriate corrections.

If I can actually answer your question in less than 140 characters, it is most likely not the kind of question that the site deserves. Posting my "answer" as a comment serves as a reminder of this. Others should VtC and downvote as appropriate.

Bottom line: answering as a comment for simple and/or stupid questions saves face in cases where the question isn't actually as bad as it seems (and where the obvious answer isn't correct), and aims to curb abuse in the cases where the question really is bad. Yes, by giving the answer I am giving in to the help vampires, but at least I am trying to avoid the enabling behaviour of aggressive answerers who don't care about the question quality.

In the former case, eventually once the question has been worked out properly, it can be properly answered. In the latter case, one hopes that the question is downvoted and closed to oblivion, so it doesn't show up on the main page to distract answerers.

I have been starting to do that too, and was wondering if I am the only one. Additionally now that we have a somewhat usable android app, I often just want to give people a general direction; with the app adding necessary detail and research for an answer that meet personal quality standards isn't always possible, but you still want to contribute. In that case I really don't mind anyone making a real answer out of my comment.
–
PlasmaHHMay 1 '14 at 10:01

2

I disagree you'd be repwhoring - usually bad questions get few views and so your answer gets correspondingly few (if any) votes. So I would answer such, and just let the question fade away.
–
gbjbaanbMay 1 '14 at 10:06

1

I've answered a few "trivial" questions in comments for similar reasons as nneonneo: I'm not particularly here for the rep, but to be helpful. As a (relative) newcomer to answering questions (as opposed to using existing answers to solve my problems) what I've probably lacked is the knowledge/confidence to downvote/vote-to-close the question as well. Another reason to "answer" in comments is where I don't know that what I'm suggesting is an answer (and either don't have time or the question's to vague to verify) but might be sufficient to help the OP get to an answer.
–
TripeHoundMay 1 '14 at 10:32

12

Your first point is exactly why I do this. If a single comment on a bad question can stem the flow of 4 or 5 duplicate answers, then it's worth it.
–
Chris LaplanteMay 1 '14 at 16:43

@ChrisLaplante I seems like lately this is much less effective than it used to be. On top of that a lot of the answers tend to be just wrong or subtly wrong and they don't always get negative scores.
–
Shafik YaghmourMay 1 '14 at 18:52

1

I also do this when I don't have time to write a 'proper' answer, or the answer is really just a link to an example from the docs.
–
tcaswellMay 1 '14 at 19:05

13

"These questions should not exist" Really? How does someone putting an answer in the wrong place change the quality of the question?
–
WGroleauMay 1 '14 at 20:41

7

@WGroleau: It doesn't. The questions should be downvoted, closed and unanswered. Unfortunately, too many folks are willing to put down a quick answer to garner rep. Answers in comments are an effort to reduce the positive incentive (rep gain from answering).
–
nneonneoMay 1 '14 at 22:28

It partially works. Sometimes, I want to answer a question, but when I see the answer I intended to give in the comments already, I hesitate. But then again, a question needs answering, and I intended to answer it anyway, so I usually still do.
–
GolezTrolMay 2 '14 at 8:12

3

By the way, it just bothers me that so many questions remain unanswered, that's why I answer them. If I think a question is bad, I downvote or close it as well, but it shows that this judgement is rather subjective. Anyway, gaining reputation is not the reason for answering such questions. Usually you won't get much rep out of them anyway, since the asker has already left or is pissed of, and sometimes people even downvote answers, just because they feel it shouldn't be given. So if I answer a question, it's because I like to give that answer, not just for rep.
–
GolezTrolMay 2 '14 at 8:19

1

@nneonneo - I don't buy it. It's reasonable to say a bad question shyould be closed. It is NOT reasonable to say that questions with answers in comments should be closed. You agreed with me that the comment doesn't make the question bad, and then you promptly repeated your claim that the question should be closed anyway.
–
WGroleauMay 2 '14 at 12:21

As someone guilty of this, +1 to your post especially point #1 which is also why I answer in comments the first time.
–
Burhan KhalidMay 4 '14 at 7:57

1

@WGroleau Putting down answers to these questions prevent the OP from deleting them if the mistake was trivial or extremely localized.
–
AsadMay 4 '14 at 8:07

In some cases you can instead use Community Wiki...
–
Andy HaydenMay 6 '14 at 12:33

Sorry to necro this answer, but something I've noticed a few times made me come searching for it: someone, a few minutes after a nneonneo answer-in-a-comment, posted an answer that clearly just copied and pasted the comment and added something like "You should do this:", with no further elaboration or explanation. The one I just had open a second ago damnit but now can't find… the answer had +2/-2 votes on it and was accepted, the question was only at 2/5 close votes. So… not the outcome you were hoping for. I don't know how common it is, but you may want to check back on some of these to see.
–
abarnertSep 20 '14 at 3:59

I answer as a comment when I have a suggestion, maybe I don't have time to do due diligence but the OP would have the time to try it. To me that's better than writing an answer that has a chance of being right, but also has a high chance of being wrong (and getting downvoted)

I think until we have a promote to answer button, as members of the community, we should copy the comment into an answer and give credit to the person who made the comment.

That's one of my reasons for answering in comments. Another: the question is unclear but I have a good guess as to what they might be looking for; if that's the case and I can give a simple answer, I may answer the question I think they might be asking, in a comment, but not as a real answer because I really don't know if I'm answering the right question.
–
ajbMay 1 '14 at 18:35

Here's an example of where I put a suggestion in comments that someone suggested I change to an answer, but I thought it would get downvoted, so I left it in comments. stackoverflow.com/questions/23398552/…
–
TecBratMay 1 '14 at 18:57

@TecBrat I think this case is different, just a link does not qualify as an answer and would surely get downvoted. In that case, I would copy the relevant content of the link into the answer, then you would not get downvoted, if you don't have time, maybe someone else will.
–
Juan MendesMay 1 '14 at 22:16

2

Often, if the question is unclear, I'll post a comment that says "What do you mean? If you mean ABC, then the answer is XYZ; but if you don't mean ABC then please clarify your question.". From there, one of two things happens. Either someone else posts XYZ as an answer, which is fair enough; or the OP disappears never to be seen again. Perhaps they tried XYZ and it worked, or perhaps they just stopped caring. If the OP doesn't say what they really meant, does the question deserve to have an answer?
–
David WallaceMay 12 '14 at 5:37

The common theme I've noticed is that many of the questions are usually "Why doesn't my code work?" that are answered with a simple "Because you forgot/omitted/mistyped X".

More often than not: as they should be, when a friendly soul decides to help.

On your end, please do your electorate job and downvote the question when it's low quality enough to be undesirable on this site -- which is to say nearly always for this type of question. If the OP doesn't delete the question himself when he takes note of the downvote, the system will eventually do so after a certain period of time -- precisely because it has no answers beyond a one liner.

Ideally, toss in a close vote on top where appropriate. And if it's low quality enough to warrant immediate moderator attention, flag it as such.

The exception I can think of is when a lenghty discussion to a potentially interesting problem (to future visitors) gets solved in the comments. Post that one as a community if you feel it's worth spending time on.

You seem to be downplaying the importance of closing these types of questions (at least IMO) (I believe the automatic deletion will only happen if no-one posts an answer that eventually gets upvoted). There's a reason specifically for this - "This question was caused by a problem that can no longer be reproduced or a simple typographical error. While similar questions may be on-topic here, this one was resolved in a manner unlikely to help future readers."
–
DukelingMay 1 '14 at 8:29

1

As I wrote: "toss in a close vote on top where appropriate" :-)
–
Denis de BernardyMay 1 '14 at 8:43

3

I'm more inclined to agree with @Dukeling - I'd rather not send the OP (and the wider internet community which s/he represents) the message that SO will berate them for making an obvious, but not to them, mistake in their code. Happens to the best of us.
–
BlackhawkMay 1 '14 at 13:46

7

I will try to answer a question in the comments in many of the cases where I vote to close the question for reasons other than a duplicate, and sometimes even for duplicates if the answer can be quickly summarized. I vote to close to help keep the site clean, I answer in the comments because there is a human being on the other side of that question, frustrated enough to seek help. I do not enjoy playing the role of the Gatekeeper of Knowledge, so even if their question is bad for our site, I am still willing to share what I know.
–
Chris BakerMay 1 '14 at 17:19

When I ask a question and get an answer in comments, I'll usually comment "please make that comment an answer and I'll accept it". I think there was one time when it just sat as a comment after that.

The ability for an OP to promote an answer is a good idea. I think it should automatically mark it as the accepted answer, give the commenter some rep and have it display "promoted from comment" or some such. That "promoted" answer could be locked from getting more votes so that the commenter is not at risk of losing rep for what he/she meant as just a comment.

I do this, too, and most times the commenter does follow through with the answer. If they don't, then Oh well.
–
CyberherbalistMay 1 '14 at 18:37

1

I tend to answer a lot of questions in the comments. Those also always tend to be low quality questions that i feel should be closed for one reason or another, so the comment is accompanied by a downvote and a close reason when applicable. If a few hours go by and someone has asked for me to move it to an answer and it isn't closed yet, i do move it to an answer.
–
Kevin BMay 1 '14 at 20:51

I added a comment a few days ago that suggested a couple general possibilities. It wasn't possible to know an actual "Answer" at that point, but one of the suggestions did indeed provide what was needed. Worse, it took specific parameters to apply the suggestion to the question, and I didn't know exactly how the OP applied it. When the OP suggested I create an "Answer", it wasn't clear what it should be. The OP created the actual "Answer". But I am relatively new and am just understanding enough of SO to know how it's really supposed to work. There's a lot to learn here.
–
user2338816May 1 '14 at 22:20

2

I don't agree about the auto promotion. Generally my answers are more detailed than my comments. If I haven't enough interest in a question to flesh out a one liner comment to something more substantial I don't want it to appear in my answer history.
–
Martin SmithMay 2 '14 at 19:12

I do so when I don't want to write up a full, decent quality answer. Maybe I'm on my phone waiting for food to arrive or a baby to fall asleep, maybe I don't feel like doing the research, maybe I don't feel like confirming my answer is the right one and it is only a suspicion. The "decent quality answer" metric isn't the SO line, but rather my own personal line of quality (which varies with the lunar cycle).

I do not answer as a comment to avoid the risk of downvoting (I have all the rep I really need). I do not answer as a comment to block someone else getting easy points while avoiding them myself (I have nothing against people earning easy rep).

If someone sees an answer-as-comment and wants to turn it into a full answer (ideally fleshing it out), more power to them. I often suggest that the original questioner do so if they ask me to turn it into an answer.

Under the above, "quote in an answer of my own" would be an appropriate buttons. Turning my comment into an answer by me would be avoiding my intention (that I'm not willing to consider it a full answer by me)

Thanks for this! It's been really helpful for me to understand WHY people answer in comments - makes much more sense now :)
–
BlackhawkMay 5 '14 at 20:30

If I find find a specific comment of mine helped out, I might be tempted to write it out in a full answer anyway, with added detail if necessary (such as stackoverflow.com/questions/23415685/…). The comment space is limited; also, you can't know in advance a certain comment is enough for the asker.
–
JongwareMay 5 '14 at 21:09

2

@Jongware sure, but that also depends on the get-up-and-go umption level I currently have. My odds of doing that are higher if the question looks more universally applicable, or if the full answer seems fun to write.
–
YakkMay 6 '14 at 12:43

I may be wrong but if you're talking about questions like this one for example I would take a totally different action before actually even thinking about converting a comment to an answer.

Start with the question

Is is any good? Should it remain on site as a guide/source of good information? Are any future readers going to benefit from that question? How likely is it that anyone will run into a similar issue?

Looking at the linked question I know right away the OP didn't do his search and research to start off with. While the question may be on topic, it does not show any research. It's a dump of code (well, 3 lines).

Just imagine how many variations of bad syntax questions can be out there. I honestly don't think it should take the OP any longer than 5 minutes to find an answer using any search engine.

In such cases, I would rather close to vote as

This question was caused by a problem that can no longer be reproduced
or a simple typographical error. While similar questions may be
on-topic here, this one was resolved in a manner unlikely to help
future readers. This can often be avoided by identifying and closely
inspecting the shortest program necessary to reproduce the problem
before posting.

even if the question did not get an answer nor comments. Stack Overflow should be the last place you go to when you get completely stuck and can't proceed. If you can get an answer to your question by simply googling/debugging - (in case you don't know how to debug - than go up the hierarchy and google debugging in VBA ) than such questions should not even be answered as it lowers the site quality.

IMO, there is no point to do this

For the sake of making this question answered and thus worth finding
through a search engine by other users

Even if the question gets solved via comments section you should rather vote to close it instead of answering it.

Yeah, I reread that later and felt guilty cause it sounded a bit snarky :( But honestly, my best interactions with StackExchange have always been through searching a topic, finding a question which nearly matches what I'm asking, and reading the accepted and top community voted answers to teach my what I lack. Sure, many of the questions we're talking about are just obvious mistakes. My biggest concern was the number of these "answered" questions that get stuffed into the SO's archives for all of history with no accepted answer. I think, based on the feedback here, I should just vote to close.
–
BlackhawkMay 1 '14 at 13:55

There's a lot of people who downvote anything they don't like, even if it's correct.
That causes people to post answers to the questions of their questions as comments, keeps the answer alive.
And as these often are questions where a the answer can be very short, and there are other people who routinely downvote short answers just because they are short answers...

The common theme I've noticed is that many of the questions are usually "Why doesn't my code work?" that are answered with a simple "Because you forgot/omitted/mistyped X".

Out of these questions, how many fit the bill of

off topic because... This question was caused by a problem that can no longer be reproduced or a simple typographical error. While similar questions may be on-topic here, this one was resolved in a manner unlikely to help future readers. This can often be avoided by identifying and closely inspecting the shortest program necessary to reproduce the problem before posting.

?

For in-comment answers for questions which don't fit the bill then the aforementioned Community Wiki is available.

Great question. I'd go for "Repost the Comment as an Answer" and I have done so a few times, with "enhancements" so that it's my answer, not just a copy of the comment.

That way, the question has a good answer for the record, (maybe you'll get the points, maybe not) and I think maybe it will encourage "chronic commenters" to bite the bullet and post an answer, lest someone "beat them to the punch".

I think "chronic commenters" are often people who might be afraid to post an answer and get downvoted, and they need to muster up the courage to answer. That's not always the case though - I often see members with very big reps post lots of answers to trivial questions in comments - probably because they just consider the question too simple to merit a full answer. I don't agree with that approach but I understand it.

I think the appropriate thing to ask is what incentive there is to write out the comment as an answer. The only three I can think of are:

1. Useless internet points
2. Fame and glory
3. Making SO the reference of Questions and Answers it should be.

For a lot of people, 3 is not a priority at all (myself included), and 1 and 2 are superfluous after a certain point. I'm here to see if I can solve some problems and learn something. I really don't want to spend the five minutes it takes to convert a comment into an answer, just for 15 useless internet points (assuming the OP even selects the answer).

Can one hire an agency to gain points for you? (HOLD IT -- I think I have a golden idea here!)
–
JongwareMay 5 '14 at 21:11

2

I smell a billion dollar industry. step 1, convince businesspeople that SO points are the only good measure of a developer's skills. 2. Sell rep grinding services. 3. Profit
–
Marshall TigerusMay 6 '14 at 0:51

IMO If I was hiring, the more SO points a prospecting employee has would steer me away from them because I know they must be spending too much time on SO, that it would make me question whether or not they would be productive enough when they keep going back on SO every 25 minutes. Although you still may be able to convince employers who are familiar with SO but not familiar enough to know how much of a productivity killer it can be.
–
user1632018May 6 '14 at 5:46

I had an interviewer who specifically asked about SO and how much time I spent on it. I was honest and told her I spent a lot of time while I was getting my degree, but not a lot of time lately (around the time of the interview at least). She told me her current developer spent a lot of time researching new and innovative things on SO to improve their business. I'm still not sure if she was being snowed, or was serious
–
Marshall TigerusMay 6 '14 at 14:00

For a lot of people, 3 is not a priority at all : However, that is the stated objective of SO, so IMO it should be considered. SO is a very valuable resource - perhaps the most valuable resource out there today for programmers doing real work - and it doesn't cost us anything. So I believe it's important for us users to hold up our share of the bargain by helping the site to fulfill its objective. That's how an online community like SO develops and prospers, to the benefit of everyone involved.
–
VectorFeb 23 at 1:32

then the college/employer is a moron : Why so? SO points should not be the only criterion for hiring someone, but it can certainly be considered, especially if the one looking at those points is able to evaluate why and how they have been accumulated.
–
VectorFeb 23 at 1:38

The number of SO points you have is useless information. They may as well see how much reddit karma you have or how many likes your last facebook post has. Now, looking through you SO history, answers and questions would be better than just looking at the number of points you have.
–
Marshall TigerusFeb 27 at 17:06

I would say that if the issue simply disappeared or ceased to exist by no action of the asker (e.g. fluke technical error that vanished the next day), then vote to close as "no longer an issue". For most other questions, it should be a blanket Convert the comment into an answer, but it should be up to the discretion of the asker or person who answered it on whether it becomes a Community Wiki.

I always have issues where people answer good, difficult questions in the comments (and of course simple ones). I want to give them points and close the questions! I always just offer to accept the first answer that person puts. If he doesn't do anything, then I leave it alone and don't choose an answer.

I sometimes end up solving the problem in the comments but the solution doesn't make a good answer to the question because the question that was asked was the wrong question. This isn't just limited to XY problems that are identified through the comments and the resolved, there are other examples.

So, the problem has been resolved due to the comments but the comments don't, of themselves, make a good answer to the question that has been asked. Choices:

Post your comment as an answer, despite it not actually answering the question posed

this may produce downvotes both immediately and later for people who want the literal answer to the question as posed

Encourage the OP to edit the question into what it should have been

Which is quite a lot of investment for someone to put in when they've got other things to be doing (such as using the answer they've obtained)

which then makes the comments stream irrelevant - so you either leave those lots of these irrelevant comments or you delete them, but those comments may still represent a fair bit of value in how the solution was reached, from the starting point of the wrong question.

Wouldn't a simple "Mark as Answer" button next to a comment be sufficient? Or at least give the OP the right to change a comment to an answer, and then mark it manually. The answer would be susceptible to the same community scrutiny as any other answer. The only problem would be if users stop posting answers altogether and just post comments, which may never get changed to an answer. Maybe an answer from the comment section gets fewer fame points than one that was appropriately submitted as an answer?

Make a bookmarklet or greasemonkey script to copy a comment into a community wiki answer with a single gesture.

In an edit, the OP wrote that this does not "address those quickie one-off comment answers to questions which are simple enough to warrant them." It seems to me best-suited for short, complete answers. Why not?

Comments which can stand, without change, as acceptable answers are actually quite rare. Just about all need re-formatting (there's more and better formatting available for answers), and only slightly fewer need some fleshing-out.
–
DeduplicatorOct 19 '14 at 2:14

@Jongware: It should have been given as an answer in the first place. Then, when it turned out to be right, that's what the accepted big green tick is for! (In all seriousness, the circumstance you link to looks fine to me ... just about.)
–
Lightness Races in OrbitFeb 22 at 14:42

1

Submit an answer that basically comes down to "does it work if you try this?" -- come on, you know better than that! In the case I mentioned, my comment acted as remote debugging, which is very common in comment threads.
–
JongwareFeb 22 at 14:49

1

@Jongware: Every answer basically comes down to "does it work if you try this?". If remote debugging is required in comment threads, then a testcase was not presented in the question. Which is illegal!
–
Lightness Races in OrbitFeb 22 at 14:58

To some extent: this is part of the "SO and other QA sites are collapsing" phenomenon....

One of the reasons people "just post comments, rather than answers" - it's a bit like deliberately not voting in national elections.

People are completely pissed off with "point whore" users, they are pissed off with down and even up voters, they are pissed off with "useless newbie flood" questions in general.

Once again - it's is precisely analogous to "abstain from voting" in a national election.

Note -- another thing people are doing more and more is, instead of adding an answer to a question, just edit another reasonable answer, adding more information. It's a great idea. And again it's exactly part of the "fuck you all, I won't play this game" "abstain from voting" response.

Another way to look at the same phenomenon. Chasing points, and chasing "neat correct answers!!" is an incredibly old fashioned "2000s" idea.

(A younger colleague would say to me "Hell dude, were you born in the fricking 1980s? What's next facebook and a bulletin board?")

{It's amazing that people now say "you were born in the 80s?" much as "we" used to say "WTF you were born before WW2?" or similar.}

You have to accept that the very idea of a QA board with "rep points" (snicker) and "correctly selected answers" ("uh heard of text search" .. another thing a young person would tell me ... "there's this awesome new thing on computers .. scrolling") is indeed becoming square.

It's much, much cooler to just drop in a comment with all the relevant info...

(Or even indeed, as I mention, the latest thing is just edit some other answer - it's like you're saying 'points are so out of it I'll just use this other guy's answer rather than support the system'...)

{Another thing is just giving away your points. I do that in a pathetic attempt to be like the cool young guys. I just give away all my points as bounties.}

So, these are points worth considering if you're deeply interested in QA culture!